PETITION: Regarding FINAL FANTASY XIV Steam Version (Mar. 8)

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Originally Posted by Raikujo

Signed. I would also like an option to migrate my account, or at least an option to buy the non-Steam version and retain my license.

When I tried to make the swap to Steam earlier today, deleting FFXIV apparently also meant that your mail and saved messages get deleted as well. I have some mail and messages that are precious memories to me, and I do not wish to see them deleted. Of course, I can always take pictures of each mail and message individually, but I would rather not it have to come to that.

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It doesnt delete them, I can confirm this. I reinstalled my client for Shadowbringers, got that message, but lost nothing.

If you are worried, just make a backup of your xiv documents / my games folder. That has all your char data and should be backed up anyway.

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Originally Posted by Akuni

Except FFXIV was on the non-refundable list on steam for pretty much always? So no, this is not the reasoning.

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I refunded FFxiv a few years back but that caused the account to be banned. Not sure if that's possible anymore, but it was at one time.

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Originally Posted by YojimboM

Replying for visibility because this is one of the most idiotic changes SE has thought up in recent history. This is the only MMO I know of that you can purchase through Steam that will also force you to launch it through the Steam client. This is most likely yet another case of SE attempting to plug some minuscule "hole" in their profits at the expense of their customers.

This should never happen if only exclusively for the reasoning that if the Steam servers go down then it also means that people won't be able to access FFXIV for that period of time either, playing a separately paid game should have absolutely no connection to Steam whatsoever.

I hoped they learned their lesson about handing things off to middlemen with Vegas last year, but apparently not.

I can only imagine the number of legitimate paying customers they're forcing this on despite it never being in any terms or agreements when they paid for the product through Steam. All for the sake of more than likely an extremely minor percent of people committing some unspecified type of "fraud".

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You need to re-read and / or understand Steam's Terms of Service. S-E, Steam, or both, are well within their rights to enact this change, and, further, you consented to this change when you agreed to the Steam and S-E Terms of Service when you bought the game on the Steam platform.

I do understand this thread about the concerns you have.
But I do not understand the attempt of bailing from it now. I walked into the store and bought my copy - with disk and plastic box - in 2013. But this step - walking into a store when you can get everything "so comfortable" without leaving the house - is too much for many. To give you that convenience of a digital and swift purchase, you assigned a service - Steam. And now you wonder why you have to login via Steam? Every "man in the middle" is bad, and it is pretty obvious. Heck, you could've even bought the DVD copy and get it via mail.


I repeat one more time that I fully understand your concerns of downed servers etc. But you want to bail from a contract now (except for a few that want to re-purchase it), and that just makes me facepalm somewhat.

Imagine you walk into a Telekom store and buy a smartphone with a Telekom Sim card. And as soon as Telekom wants you to use their simcard that is attached with the phone you bought from their store, you rather want to use O². Sounds weird, no?

Now imagine you browse the Steam store and buy a game via Steam. And as soon as Steam wants you to use their client that is attached to the game you bought from their store, you want to use Square Enix' native solution. Sounds weird, no?


And despite all that is perfectly fine, you open a petition? To bail from a contract you signed?

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Originally Posted by MrKusakabe

I do understand this thread about the concerns you have.
But I do not understand the attempt of bailing from it now. I walked into the store and bought my copy - with disk and plastic box - in 2013. But this step - walking into a store when you can get everything "so comfortable" without leaving the house - is too much for many. To give you that convenience of a digital and swift purchase, you assigned a service - Steam. And now you wonder why you have to login via Steam? Every "man in the middle" is bad, and it is pretty obvious. Heck, you could've even bought the DVD copy and get it via mail.


I repeat one more time that I fully understand your concerns of downed servers etc. But you want to bail from a contract now (except for a few that want to re-purchase it), and that just makes me facepalm somewhat.

Imagine you walk into a Telekom store and buy a smartphone with a Telekom Sim card. And as soon as Telekom wants you to use their simcard that is attached with the phone you bought from their store, you rather want to use O². Sounds weird, no?

Now imagine you browse the Steam store and buy a game via Steam. And as soon as Steam wants you to use their client that is attached to the game you bought from their store, you want to use Square Enix' native solution. Sounds weird, no?


And despite all that is perfectly fine, you open a petition? To bail from a contract you signed?

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Other then your rude post of saying how others are entitled, explain to be this contract that was signed when someone purchased the game through Steam, since the only Terms of Service you agree to is Square Enix, Not Steams.

And FYI, since you seem to think brick and mortar is the choice, implying people are scared of socializing and insulting them for using the online method... It's called convenience, and not everyone wants to waste gas or time to go to a brick and mortar when you can download, and yes you could download in the year you proclaim of 2013. Heck, brick and mortar stores are DEAD for gaming. You can buy physical and digital copies online far cheaper, and supporting the developers with more money, since don't have to share a cut with the retailer.

And btw, you're free to use any sim card you want depending on where you live in the world. In the United States, sims are attached to carrier, phone can be transferred to any carrier, so your argument is null.

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Originally Posted by MrKusakabe

I do understand this thread about the concerns you have.
But I do not understand the attempt of bailing from it now. I walked into the store and bought my copy - with disk and plastic box - in 2013. But this step - walking into a store when you can get everything "so comfortable" without leaving the house - is too much for many. To give you that convenience of a digital and swift purchase, you assigned a service - Steam. And now you wonder why you have to login via Steam? Every "man in the middle" is bad, and it is pretty obvious. Heck, you could've even bought the DVD copy and get it via mail.


I repeat one more time that I fully understand your concerns of downed servers etc. But you want to bail from a contract now (except for a few that want to re-purchase it), and that just makes me facepalm somewhat.

Imagine you walk into a Telekom store and buy a smartphone with a Telekom Sim card. And as soon as Telekom wants you to use their simcard that is attached with the phone you bought from their store, you rather want to use O². Sounds weird, no?

Now imagine you browse the Steam store and buy a game via Steam. And as soon as Steam wants you to use their client that is attached to the game you bought from their store, you want to use Square Enix' native solution. Sounds weird, no?


And despite all that is perfectly fine, you open a petition? To bail from a contract you signed?

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Nothing weird really, in short, its a change of conditions=change of the contract. There was never a condition which required you to use or forced you to use the steam client to play the game, only the limitation of having to buy every expansion trough steam. So now that this has changed, you can view it as a new contract and people have 3 options, make a petition and try to negotiate new conditions or get some options.Like a request to swap from pc steam > pc "se" for free("a way out"), option to buy the game again(which personally i am against and will not do) and register it on the same account("a way out"), which at the moment is not possible since pc "se" and pc "steam" don't work on same account,cancel subscription and stop playing the game, or agree to the new condition and run the game through steam.
As long as conditions or other things in a contract change, you are always asked if you agree and want to continue the contract, if you don't agree you can "bail" or try to negotiate and get other conditions or options. If its not negotiable then you simply bail or agree. Don't understand what's weird about that.

As for your examples: "the store vs comfort digital purchase", its not uncommon to go to a store to purchase a "hard copy" for a game and see that there is no dvd inside and/or that on the back of the package is the "steam" account requirement. Nowadays you have more trouble finding a copy which doesn't bind you to "steam" or other platforms and you have to look online to get one, so all this comfort of not leaving home can easily be dismissed. Or maybe it depends on the location and /or stores where you buy the games from and with which distributor they are contracted with,idk.

And for the other examples its the same case as above. As long as there is not a condition which forces you to do something, you don't have to do it, no matter if maybe the other party might wish/want for you to do so.


At least that's how i see it, i am not a lawyer so i might be wrong..

and i said i wont post here anymore... welp now i did :o

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Originally Posted by MrKusakabe

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That may be true for some people in the thread but for others it's not an accurate depiction of what is happening.

A lot of people bought ARR on Steam when there was no indication this would tie their PC service account to Steam forever.
In fact, that wasn't even a thing until Heavensward released, where droves of people preordered HW from SE directly only to find out that now it is "once Steam, always Steam". Alright, fine, refunds were made and HW and all subsequent expansions were purchased from Steam, fair enough.
Now Steam or SE or both want to change things further and force people with the Steam license to launch the game through Steam. This is an immediate problem for everyone who can't use Steam for technical reasons or doesn't even have the game in their Steam library because they were gifted a license key from someone else (though in that case creating a throwaway trial through Steam could work).
How far this change goes we do not know, I've said that somewhere upthread already but the potential changes range from "you simply have to launch the Steam-provided client through Steam" to "Steam throws their own (notoriously unstable) auth servers into the login process and when they're down for days on end you simply don't get to play, tough luck".

The majority of people I've read would grudingly buy the game licenses again to be independent from Steam but they can't, it's not an option SE provides.
If you are one of the people who bought ARR from Steam well before any of the limitations were indicated or existing I can see how this whole thing smacks of "pray we don't alter the deal further".

To come around to your smartphone example:
This is like buying a smartphone that isn't SIM-locked in a Telekom store. Then when you try to install a flash card for more memory you are told you can only use accessories bought from the Telekom shop. Then a few years later they SIM-lock your phone.
Granted, most people would've changed phones a couple of times in that timeframe but it's the analogy you provided.
In this context data transfers between Telekom and non-Telekom phones are not possible and you can only add contacts when you're personally meeting them (because we need some way to emulate years of progress in FFXIV). You buy a smartphone from Telekom once, you're stuck with them for life, unless you want to start over with an empty address book and one of the providers that are not Telekom.

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Originally Posted by MrKusakabe

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Frankly, and I do mean this kindly, it doesn't sound like you do understand the concerns laid out in this thread.

When I bought this game four years ago (exactly one day before Heavensward's release date, in fact) I knew little to nothing about it. I knew it had failed and relaunched, I had seen a small bit of gameplay from a friend of mine buying it some weeks earlier, and I'd heard some positive things about it. I was bored of WoW and decided to give it a shot - yes, a shot, a trial, a test to see if I would even like it enough to keep playing.

I bought the game through Steam because, at the time, I used Steam for a lot of my game purchases. I'd bought and played several games through Steam and had never had any problems at all (barring the usual glitches and occasional breaking on the games' side *cough*Skyrim*cough*).

I'd also never played an MMO that required login through a completely separate third party to play. I'd never played an MMO that had entirely different types of licenses based on where you bought the game. I had no idea that I would need to buy every expansion thereafter through Steam. To be short, I had absolutely no reason to believe that me buying the game through Steam would be any different at all than me buying the game somewhere else.

I'm not interested in "bailing" on any contract for no reason. The terms of that "contract" have changed, and in a way that I am not happy with.

I rarely, if ever, use Steam at all anymore. I do not keep it up to date. I haven't bought a game from them in months. Now I'll have to keep Steam installed and up to date despite the fact that I very rarely use it at all, and I'll have to just hope that this really won't have any impacts on my ability to log in and stay logged into the game.

If they're set on going through with this change, I'd at least like some more information on it. I want to know for a fact that this will not impact my ability to play the game.

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Originally Posted by MrKusakabe

I do understand this thread about the concerns you have.
But I do not understand the attempt of bailing from it now. I walked into the store and bought my copy - with disk and plastic box - in 2013. But this step - walking into a store when you can get everything "so comfortable" without leaving the house - is too much for many. To give you that convenience of a digital and swift purchase, you assigned a service - Steam. And now you wonder why you have to login via Steam? Every "man in the middle" is bad, and it is pretty obvious. Heck, you could've even bought the DVD copy and get it via mail.


I repeat one more time that I fully understand your concerns of downed servers etc. But you want to bail from a contract now (except for a few that want to re-purchase it), and that just makes me facepalm somewhat.

Imagine you walk into a Telekom store and buy a smartphone with a Telekom Sim card. And as soon as Telekom wants you to use their simcard that is attached with the phone you bought from their store, you rather want to use O². Sounds weird, no?

Now imagine you browse the Steam store and buy a game via Steam. And as soon as Steam wants you to use their client that is attached to the game you bought from their store, you want to use Square Enix' native solution. Sounds weird, no?


And despite all that is perfectly fine, you open a petition? To bail from a contract you signed?

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As has been stated numerous times now, back in 2013 when a lot of people bought ARR from Steam, there was no indication that buying it from Steam meant you were signing a blood pact that would bind you and your entire lineage to Steam for all eternity. This was a surprise that was revealed to us when we discovered we had to buy Heavensward from Steam.

I just came here to say this. Steam client makes the game unplayable. If this is going to be forced on us I think we should at least be given the opportunity to get our keys changed to windows. I’ve been supporting this game for five years, I think they could allow me that.